Investigating the prehistory of highland valleys in the
Madang Province
By Judith Field, School of BEES, The University of New South Wales
New Guinea has a complex and largely unknown history regarding
the arrival and subsequent dispersal of people across the landscape. When people first entered what is now modern day New
Guinea, it was part of a much larger landmass. This landmass is
commonly referred to as Sahul, and also included continental
Australia and Tasmania. It was not until around 9,000 years ago
that Sahul separated into Australia and New Guinea as Torres
Strait formed with rising sea levels.
Some of the oldest sites in Australia and New Guinea are found in
the Ivane Valley, which lies at 2,000 m ASL in the Owen Stanley
Ranges, about 120km northwest of Port Moresby. Radiocarbon
dates of 46,000-49,000 years have been obtained from horizons
where flaked stone tools have been recovered. The investigations
were undertaken by a team led by Professor Glenn Summerhayes
from Otago University in New Zealand. The question remains –
why haven’t we found sites of similar age elsewhere in the highlands? Certainly there are numerous places along the north coast
of New Guinea, which archaeological investigations have shown to
be older than 30,000 years. For example, at Bobongara Point on
the Huon Peninsula (Morobe Province), waisted stone axes have
been found that are believed to be at least 40,000 years old.
In 2014, Professor
Glenn Summerhayes
and Dr Judith Field
(the University of
New South Wales,
Sydney, Australia)
were awarded an
Australian Research
Council Discovery
Grant to pursue
archaeological research around Simbai. Together with
Dr Ben Shaw
(UNSW), the late
Herman Mandui
(National Museum, POM) and Mr Henry Arifeae (National Museum, POM) we set about consulting with communities and authorities to lay the groundwork for a project investigating the
prehistory of the Simbai and Kaironk River Valleys in Madang
Province.
The project aims were to investigate the likely pathways used by
people to travel between the coast and the highlands, the subsequent settlement history of the area. There is still much to learn
about New Guinea’s past and the information obtained during this
study will help us understand aspects of New Guinea history that
are as yet unknown – in particular how people adapted to new
environments, innovations in tool design and use, and how these
related to environmental change through time.
Our project specifically targets the Kaironk and Simbai River Valleys of the Kalam speaking people. The Kaironk Valley has had a
long history of research interst, as seen in the work of anthropologists (Professor Ralph Bulmer, Dr Ian Saem Majnep), linguists (Dr
Andrew Pawley), botany (Dr R. Gardner) and of course Dr Sue
Bulmer, who had undertaken the initial investigations at the famous archaeological site at Wanelek.
Sue Bulmer often referred to three grassland corridors linking the
north coast of New Guinea to the highland areas, suggesting these
may have acted as conduits through which people travelled to the
highlands. These pathways were the 1. Ramu-Markham River
valleys; 2. the Yuat-Jimi River Valleys; and 3. the Simbai-Kaironk
River Valleys. It is the third corridor that we have targeted for our
project. Our understanding of the prehistory of this particular part
of New Guinea has been mostly limited to the investigations at
the important Wanelek site by Sue Bulmer in the early 1970s. We
have taken a landscape approach to the archaeology to build a
picture of where and how people lived and the resources they
The project has focused on the Simbai-Kaironk for 3 reasons: 1. investigations at the Wanelek site indicated people have been in these valleys for
at least 20,000 years; 2. there has been no comprehensive survey of these
valleys since the work of Sue Bulmer (though Dr Tim Denham made a brief
visit in the late 2000s.); and 3. the archaeological ‘potential’ of this area
has never really been explored, as indicated by numerous surface finds
which include stone axes, stone bowls and club heads. Further to this, as
one of the most peaceful and welcoming places in PNG, we believed that
it provided all the requirements for a successful project to be pursued.
In 2015, we travelled to Simbai for a 2 month field season. Our crew included Judith Field, Ben Shaw and Henry Arifeae. We were also accompanied by 3 volunteers – Dylan Gaffney (Otago University), Bruce Numode,
and Simon Wyatt-Spratt. Over the course of our time there we recorded
over 40 new sites across the 17km long survey area. We recorded many
stone axes, stone bowls, pestles and club heads that villagers had found
while digging their gardens. As there are quite a lot of limestone outcrops
in both valleys, these were investigated and a number of rockshelters and
caves were also recorded. The subsurface deposits were tested by digging small spade pits. These pits are just one method used by archaeologists to find evidence of past campfires, and bone, stone or clay pots that
were discarded and subsequently buried with time. The aim of the 2015
trip was to establish where the sites were located and to collect charcoal
samples from fireplaces for radiocarbon dating.
We now have the
results of the radiocarbon dating study
and it has shown
that there is a significant archaeological signature
across both valleys,
and in sum, the
time depth is
equivalent to the
Wanelek site.
While we can’t talk
specifically about
what this means just yet, it has focused our efforts for the current field
season. During the period July-October 2016 we have been systematically
excavating a number of sites to recover detailed information about the
length of time over which the archaeological record accumulated, the
technology people used – stone raw materials and the tools that were
made, and importantly, the preferred settlement/village locations at different times in the past. This is just the first step in unravelling the prehistory of the Simbai-Kaironk Valleys. So watch this space!
We would like to acknowledge funding by the Australian Research Council, and importantly, Sir Peter Barter and the Hon Jim Kas for their support
and facilitating our visits to the Simbai/Kaironk area.